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Good work, Buckley.”
    Moore stood straight up and thought, a snap-back actuator pad. Where does it teleport to, I wonder?
    Well, every other one of these things we’ve found snapped back to another one of these crazy hidden bases, Abigail replied.
    Hopefully, we’re onto something here.
    Moore grabbed his coffee cup off his desk on the way out the door and sipped at it as he marched down the corridor to the elevator. Abigail, locate my wife.
    Sir, your wife is with your daughter in the medical bay.
    Everything is all right there, I assume?
    Yes sir. Deanna’s procedure is almost complete.
    Understood.

    Commander Joe Buckley, Jr. had been in the Navy for more than two decades. His father had been a career man and had given his life to save the Sienna Madira . Buckley Junior had his opportunity to save the Madira in turn, but managed to survive.
    He was ready to retire from the Navy, and was about to do so, until President Alexander Moore himself offered him the position as Chief Engineer for the expeditionary mission. Buckley was under the impression that nobody in history had ever told the man no, except maybe his daughter or his wife. And then he wasn’t so sure, after having seen them on board the ship for the last year, if that ever worked out very well for them, either. The man was a force of nature. And Buckley was proud to be serving under him. The best part was that the mission had them venturing out into the stars further than humanity had ever gone and to do so they would have to travel faster than humanity ever had. That was what Buckley lived for, space travel. It was the reason he joined the Navy and the reason he studied spacetime manipulation propulsion theory in college.
    Buckley looked at the readouts in his direct-to-mind link and viewed the design of the odd little spaceship that the recon team had recovered. Although the thing had been blown to hell and ripped to shreds during the acquisition, Buckley had managed to put it all back together and create a full 3D model of the vehicle. Tracing the power leads, he realized that there was a huge source of power in the engine components. And there was a snap-back, quantum membrane technology teleportation system. And it was active and linked to other pads.
    Buckley went through the software and realized that it was an encrypted control system, but it was nothing that the AICs of the Sienna Madira couldn’t put their heads together on and crack.
    Now just where do you go, you little bugger, he thought to himself as he looked at the list of addresses attached to the quantum membrane teleportation pad. There were seven. “So you were only designed to go to seven places ,” Buckley muttered to himself.
    “If you continue to speak to yourself all the time like that, CHENG, then people are gonna put you in the looney bin,” Alexander Moore’s voice rang over his shoulder. Buckley immediately stiffened and turned.
    “Well sir, if you go up there in the looney bin, them folks are swattin’ around at stuff that’s not there all the time anyway. I think I’d fit right in,” Buckley said with a smile, as he referenced the virtual-reality simulation room where the war gaming experts would go to plan out the battles in a virtual four-dimensional direct-to-mind environment that only each of them could see. An outsider looking in would see a roomful of people moving imaginary things around in the air.
    “Show me whatcha got, Buckley,” Moore said in his slow Mississippi drawl, getting right to business. The man was always right to business.
    “Well sir,” Buckley said, “if I may . . . it’s easier to show you direct-to-mind.”
    “Sure thing.”
    Buckley noticed Moore making the expression that all humans make when they’re speaking in their minds to their AICs. Buckley did the same to his, as he instructed, Debbie, set up the DTM link with the captain.
    Roger that, Joe.
    And then, in a mini version of their own looney bin, Buckley started pointing at